Sobre alegria e Cristo

happiness was never “a new idea in Europe.” In fact, it was the oldest of ideas, defended by the ancients and pondered by the great philosophical schools. But Christianity, which inherited the notion from Greek and Latin writers, changed it with a view to transcendence: man’s concern here below must be not joy but salvation. Christ alone redeems us from original sin and puts us on the path to divine truth. All earthly pleasures, according to the Christian authors, are but phantoms from the point of view of celestial beatitude. To wish for earthly happiness would be a sin against the Spirit; the passing pleasures of mortals are nothing compared with the hell that awaits sinners who pant after them.